LET THE “MORE MONEY” CRIES BEGIN ANEW …
By FITSNEWS || In a ruling that ought to be a long-overdue wake-up call – not an excuse to pour more tax dollars into the same failed system – the S.C. Supreme Court has ruled that the Palmetto State’s government-run education system, an effective monopoly in most corners of the state, is not fulfilling its constitutional duty to provide a “minimally adequate” education in poor, rural districts.
Twenty-one years after the suit was first filed, the court found the S.C. General Assembly was in violation of its constitutional obligation to provide this “minimally adequate” education in twenty-nine of the state’s eighty-five school districts.
Really … that’s all? Because last time we checked the failure of South Carolina’s government-run system extended far beyond that.
“Thousands of South Carolina’s school children – the quintessential future of our state – have been denied this opportunity due to no more than historical accident,” the court ruled.
Wait … historical accident? Or status quo neglect … perpetuated by dumbed-down standards from the very same bureaucracy that’s now clamoring for more tax dollars in the wake of this “historic” ruling.
Should these districts get more money? Hell no. South Carolina taxpayers already spend nearly $13,000 per child each year on the worst government-run education system in America … one which (oh by the way) is hoarding roughly $1 billion in surplus funds.
So get ready for the shrill cries … the “we’ve got to do something” (i.e. spend more money) whining and moaning from the same status quo interests that have been propping up this failed bureaucracy for decades.
Then ignore it …
South Carolina’s government-run school system isn’t failing the admittedly low “minimally adequate” bar because it isn’t getting enough money … it’s failing that bar because there is absolutely zero incentive for it to improve the product it is providing.
Seriously, what do expect is going to happen when uniformly bad outcomes are rewarded each year with automatic funding increases and new government programs?
That’s easy: More fail …
South Carolina taxpayers cannot afford to continue throwing good money after bad with respect to this self-perpetuating, generational failure. The only thing that will save our schools is the accountability of the marketplace. Accompanied by a long overdue recognition that our loyalty belongs not to the status quo forces profiting from this failed system, but the children and parents who continue to be failed by it.
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34 comments
But what do dis mean?
Dis mean we gonna hab to find new excuse foah wy u so dum.
No Howie check yet this month?
They can take money from the rich districts and give it to the poor districts and then everyone/everything is “equal” and “minimally adequate”.
Problem solved.
Your position is ridiculous. The whole point of the lawsuit was that South Carolina was not funding rural schools. By linking school funding to local property taxes, S.C. made it impossible for rural school districts to raise enough money to provide a decent education.
South Carolina has basically been doing what you recommend for decades– not “pouring” money into public schools. It’s an experiment that has proven to be a miserable failure.
The schools don’t need more money, they just need to follow Obama’s plan of spreading the existing wealth.
Take some money from the rich districts & give it to the poor ones. That will fix everything.
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How much money do you need? You can home school a child for 1,000 bucks a year and get a better education.
How much does it cost to educate a SC state controlled school student? $10,000 a year?
Unless of course the home schooled child is taught by someone who was educated in one of our not even minimally adequate schools.
That’s true. I’m sure there are devoted and intelligent parents out there who homeschool. But there are also high school drop-outs homeschooling children. I know one woman who bragged to me that she’s supposed to spend 6 hours a day on homeschooling her daughter, but they get it done in 1 or 2 hours.
What will happen to that child who received 1 hour of school a day from a high school drop-out?
They will make a wonderful part time no benefit employee for Walmart and will probably vote republican. Just as our education system in SC is intended, to provide stupid low wage employees.
6 hours to 1 or 2 seems like a drastic difference – I can tell you in most cases our kids don’t spend more than 4 hours in study – but there is no waiting on the bus, recess, long lunches, etc. Their day is performance based and they are told if you do good work, and work efficiently you may be done early. Incentives seem to work but of course you need to monitor the quality of their work.
If the home schooling is done by a parent who otherwise would be making $45K at a job, it would seem to me, the cost is the $1000 plus the lost family income – so $46K. You must have edecated in SC too.
Why do both parents have to work? Did Hillary tell you that?
Actually you can home school for free if you are creative.
Just drives you crazy that your tax dollars are being flushed down the toilet, don’t it?
darn straight…especially those single parent families…
you going to pay them a salary to home school??…
And I love the thought that there are two parents both making $45,000 a year. I guess in your world thats the case.
But did you know that there are hundreds of thousands of single parents trying to raise kids in SC…of course not. Certainly they dont exist in the world you hide in..so how do you get around their existence in order to blab on about home schooling and sending kids to private schools that cost $10,000 a year..??
Your plan probably for those inconvenient facts is to deny them healthcare and hope they catch sick and die. Course then you still have the problem of what to do with tose inconvenient kids..
but that is also answered by throwing them in prison where you can pretend that they dont exist, and arent there because your polices sent them there..
wonderful world of denial, deceit and deception that you have to live in in order to support your positions on…oh…everything
so to be clear, the point that the cost of homeschooling is proof that it doesn’t take the amount of money demanded by the state’s education coalition to reach a favorable education outcome, whether you agree with it or not, is grounds to go on a rant about how there are single parents in SC, seriously, so if not every person can access a good then the people who do access that good are cretins, what a foolish argument, you, or those you’re referencing, are unable to access the commenter’s reported good regarding homeschooling, so that commenter is insensitive. Have you considered the implications of such an absurd path; to put it another way, if a single parent anywhere should ever voice a positive, exclusive to their position as a single parent, it would then be ok for me as a married person to bemoan, let me get this right, “the wonderful world of denial, deceit, and deception that you have to live in order to support your positions.” Can you honestly live up to that monstrously onerous moral position?
We home school. I am sure there is an “opportunity cost” I think it’s called, associated with this choice, but I know my kids are getting a solid education so that’s worth much more to me than the 35,000 to 45,000 she could be making. Pretty simple. So by deciding only one of us will work, we can’t have a more lavish lifestyle, but honestly it’s a trade off I’m happy to make for my kids. Just my perspective.
All of the above leads to this burning question: from which of these schools did Fitsnews’ “prufreader” receive a diploma?
Are you sure he did?
Steve Morrison would be “moderately” pleased….but would still want more.
http://www.nelsonmullins.com/pages/in-memory-of-steve-morrison/395
Frankly, Morrison was part of the problem.
People of South Carolina say, “The Entire SC Court System Is a Fucked Up Joke.”
I didn’t realize anyone at Fits could be so stupid…oh wait, I did but yes, Fits just missed a low flying duck with both barrels. This has nothing to do with school choice and sending tax dollars to private schools. That doesn’t solve the problem with these school districts and the Supreme Court’s newly created constitutional rules and their new super-legislature status. These school districts under this opinion are going to get their money regardless so by implementing school choice, you are just paying more, not less. You think there are a plethora of private schools wanting to open in Hampton and Allendale and Dillon? Hell no.
What Fits should have focused on was the dissent in the opinion, and how correct it was that this is the most judicially activist thing the Supremes have done in forever. The opinion was the most intellectually dishonest thing to come out of SC since … I can’t remember that far back.
And Fits should have also discussed the politics. You can tell Hearn and Beatty to kiss any chance of being Chief Justice goodbye after this garbage opinion. Beatty better be praying for the chance at a federal judgeship. Kittredge has rightfully shown himself (along with Costa) to be the only 2 intellectuals capable of applying the law and reaching a true judicial decision–and interesting that Toal waited until she got re-elected before this opinion came out.
This is Toal trying to leave a legacy–the only thing she has ever cared about in this state.
sic(k) willie, “…you ignorant slut.”
Vouchers, regardless of how you paint that pig, would do nothing for those who need help the most; except leave them further behind.
That’s why you are a voucher “slut”. You care nothing about those who need the most help. All you care about is Howie’s voucher scam payment.
Your voucher clown bookies, like Howie the Chief Voucher Clown, should be happy.
Now that the Court has ruled, all the S.C. Legislature needs to do is fix the funding problems for public education. Then raise the standard.
You know. The current standard is “minimally adequate.”
“Minimally adequate” is above the intellectual level we have learned to expect from you and Howie the Voucher Clown’s other voucher sluts.
Ahem….republican run schools to be exact.
Liberal judges are running Conservative SC. Something needs to be done about it.
Got a good article (on SCPSD) about all the leftwing judicial activism going on in SC, from this socialist schools ruling to letting murderers off easy and homosexual marriage redefinition. Check it out.
Got a good article (on SCPSD)
Did momma T put a smiley face sticker on it and hang it on the fridge?
The preceding has been a paid program.
The majority of flaming liberals that our General Assembly mysteriously continues to elect to the bench admits money alone is not the answer:
“We believe that all parties could agree that—given that the Defendants have disproportionately funded poorer counties such as the Plaintiff Districts in the past with little noticeable impact on student achievement rates—money alone is not the answer.”
What is frightening is how they proceed to convert the court into an oversight authority of the public school system and how the General Assembly appropriates money. They offer no insight into what they might consider appropriate authority, except by making suggestive citations to the bastions of public education known as New York state and Wyoming. The General Assembly needs to address public education in this state, but it also needs to address its tragic tendency to elect liberal fruitcakes to the judiciary.
So judge turns back on local corruption, blames state legislature that has no control on how and where school boards squander funds meant to benefit kids…
In other news Francisco Franco is still dead.
How come when SC spends $13,000 a year on education its a crime and a travesty…but when my local private school that you want to funnel tax dollars to charges $15,000 a year per student its a shining example of the private sector solving problems..???
darn those inconvenient facts for radical conservative bullshiters
This is a very big ruling that is not getting the full public’s attention. It means that the school districts that have been hoarding public money and building giant money wasting monuments to themselves will finally have to pay up. It will mean massive new taxes for new money that originally should have been shared in the first place. It will result in one of the largest tax increases in SC History. And, since it’s a court ruling, there is nothing the Legislature can do about it.
We have 100% poverty schools in the upstate. Do those schools perform better than the schools in the state’s poverty belt?